Conventionally, a fishing reel has been well-known which supports a spool rotatably to a reel body and is provided with a drive mechanism for driving the spool and a clutch mechanism interposed within a driving force transmitting unit at the drive mechanism, the clutch mechanism being engaged to rotatably drive the spool through the drive mechanism to thereby wind up a fishing line onto the spool, and disengaged to allow the spool to freely rotate, thereby permitting casting of the line.
The fishing line, when cast, is drawn out of the spool by virture of the weight of a fishing rig at the end of the line, at which time the rotational speed of the spool becomes faster than the drawing speed of the line to cause backlash, whereby the line happens to get twisted or enters between the spool and the reel body. Hence, a brake means for the spool generally is provided to prevent the occurrence of backlash.
The brake means usually employs a centrifugal brake which moves its brake shoe into slidable contact with a brake drum to exert the braking action. Accordingly, there exists a problem in that the brake shoe, when worn, changes the braking effect.
In order to solve this problem, a fishing reel has been proposed which is provided with a magnet brake comprising a magnet and an electric conductor, one of the magnet and conductor being made rotatable together with the spool and the other being supported to the reel body. The one member at the spool rotates to allow the magnetic flux to rotate and generate an eddy current and is subjected to a reaction force against rotation, under the Fleming's left-hand rule, to thereby exert a braking action on the spool. The other member at the reel body is made movable relative thereto, and an adjuster is provided axially outwardly of the spool and is operated to adjust the relative position of the magnet with respect to the electric conductor.
Since this magnet brake includes no contact portion there is no problem with a changing braking effect due to wearing of a friction member. The adjuster is operated to adjust the braking effect in proportion to the number of rotations of the spool. The braking effect, however, cannot be adjusted in response to a change in the rotational speed of the spool. In other words, for example, when a large braking effect is set prior to casting with respect to the number of rotations of the spool when backlash occurs, backlash can be minimized but the large braking action is exerted on the spool at the initial stage of casting, resulting in casting to a smaller distance. On the contrary, when the braking effect is set to a minimum with respect to the number of rotations of spool at the beginning of casting, the line can be cast to a greater distance, but backlash is apt to occur.